I have 2 kids in school and a 20 month old. Last year it was really had for the kids to focus on their work and a lot had to do with the baby. I have tried having them do their work in their rooms a before and that usually results in "goofing of" time. This year my daughter will be in 9th grade and will have a large work load so I want to find a solution to this problem before we start. I don't have any other rooms for them to work in. Anyone have any suggestions?

Not really. The other rooms in the house are all opened up together so I don't have any other room beside their own rooms and which I am just not going to try that again. I could try to create a barrier so that the baby can't get to the other kids but she will still be able to make her distracting baby noises.

Is there a way to set the kids up for school work where their back is to the baby? I know with my third and fourth graders if they can't see the distraction, but they can still hear it, they don't get distracted near as much. It's just an idea...

My youngest is almost 18mos, so I know how you feel. We aren't doing highschool work yet but He is still a distraction. What we do, is help him do to "school" stuff. While the boys are doing the things that they need a little help with, TJ is at the high chair, drawing and coloring. When TJ takes a nap we do the harder work, when they need me more. I guess my little solution is to involved the baby more, let them get to like school too. I've heard of mom's that give their toddler a bag of goodies to play with while the older kids are doing their work. She had a differnet bag for each day of the week to keep it interesting. I hope this helps. If you get any other ideas let me know.

I have a 20 month old and a 4 1/2 year old. The baby drives my 4 1/2 year old nuts when we're trying to do some school work. We can't even play games right now without him "bothering" us and taking all the pieces, etc. I think I'm going to try to put him in his highchair and give him a meal or snack and see how long that lasts. Those baby einstein videos are the only thing that holds his attention. They're only 20-30 minutes long so that's reasonable. Just thinking out loud I guess. One thing I did (accidentally actually), is gave him an empty gallon platic jug with some "things" that he could put in it, through the small opening, and he ended up messing around with that for hours! I couldn't believe it. It was kind of loud when he shook it and made noise, but it did keep him busy so if you don't have any "special" toys, try making something up as a toy.
Good luck.

I have four kids ages 6, 5, 4, and 1. I have had the same problems as you with baby being a distraction. I totally rearranged my schedule so that we do chores and free time in the morning and then, while baby is napping in the afternoon, we have school. Now I know yours is older and may not still be napping, but you could train him/her to have "room time". This is just time alone in his/her room to play quietly. You could increase time slowly to where he/she is spending an hour for room time. This would give you some good instruction time.